Intel’s CEO Vows It Will be Lord of the Things

Intel’s tiny Edison computer on a circuit board is designed to bring computing and communications to wearable things.

Intel Corp.

Intel, and other big Silicon Valley companies, keep talking about the Internet of Things with little to show for it in the way of interesting products. Brian Krzanich says that is ending very soon.

The chief executive of the big chip maker, who took the position in May, is a self-professed tinkerer who is trying to shake up some Intel’s old ways of doing things. One simple goal: get the silicon into any product that computes, regardless of its size or price.

“We want to make everything smart–that is what Intel does,” said Krzanich, during the opening keynote at the Consumer Electronics Show.

For some new proof points, Intel unveiled several pieces of technology developed by a new group headed by Mike Bell, a former Apple and Palm executive who previously worked on Intel’s mobile chips.

One of the most striking was a souped-up earpiece, code-named Jarvis, that connects wirelessly with a smartphone and allows a user to ask a series of questions like “where’s the nearest Indian restaurant,” and get a spoken response from a software agent.

Another example is a set of headphones aimed at sports enthusiasts that includes a built-in heartbeat monitor, which can send that data through the headphone jack–and charge that way, too. There’s no need to carry a separate sensor, too, Krzanich said.

Perhaps more important is a tiny circuit board called Edison, a platform for companies to bring intelligence to garments and other objects that could be turned into wearable computing products. It uses a version of Intel’s recently introduced Quark processor, and builds in other features like Bluetooth communications and Wi-Fi.

“We think this enables lots of people,” Bell said.

One company that has tried Edison out is Rest Devices, which has developed a onesie for monitoring infants called Mimo. The company previously developed its own circuit board, Bell said, but switching over to something like Edison was almost a trivially easy exercise.

Generally speaking, Intel doesn’t plan to sell the end products enabled by such circuitry. Rather, what Bell’s group has developed serve as “reference designs” that others can use in developing gadgets.

The company showed a prototype smart watch, for example, that Krzanich said is the rare exception from others in the market because it has its own wireless connectivity. It also supports a technology called geofencing, which can be used for purposes such as making sure children have arrived at a place they are supposed to be, he said.

Intel is also obsessed with becoming more fashion forward, as wearable and home devices won’t attract people if they look too geeky, Bell said. The company is teaming up with luxury retailer Barneys New York, the Council of Fashion Designers of America and the design house Opening Ceremony to make sure future products look good as well as work well, he said.

Another example Krzanich showed is a distinctively designed bowl that serves as a wireless charging device for smartphones, headphones and other devices. There’s no need to specifically align a portion of the device with some specific spot on the device, like some wireless chargers now, Bell said.

Krzanich noted that security issues are one big impediment for the Internet of Things. To help get around it, he said Intel’s McAfee unit would for the first time give away its mobile security software.

He did not shy away from discussing Intel’s conventional market, personal computers. The company, whose technology is not in many tablets, has stressed two-in-one products that can convert from clamshell to tablet mode.

In one twist, Krzanich stressed another kind of split personality, using two operating systems. He showed off an ordinary-looking laptop that, with a push of a button, instantly switched from Windows to Android. “You don’t have to make a choice going forward,” he said.

Near the close of his speech, Krzanich diverged into one of the chip industry’s thorniest social issues–the fact that some key minerals needed to make semiconductors often come from war-torn parts of Africa and are helping to fund violence there. He said Intel has worked with international groups and experts to make sure all the materials it uses come from reputable mines in the region, pledging that all Intel microprocessors produced in 2014 will be what the industry calls conflict-free.

“The minerals are important,” Krzanich said. “But not as important as the lives of the people mining them.”